CADC provider guide: Arkansas Medicaid NET rides in Region E

CADC, SCAT, and the Region E contract

Central Arkansas Development Council operates as a nonprofit community action agency, incorporated with the Arkansas Secretary of State in 1965 and headquartered at 321 Edison Avenue in Benton. Its transportation program is South Central Arkansas Transit (SCAT), which it describes as founded in 1976. SCAT runs reduced-fare public transit open to anyone and, separately, Medicaid’s non-emergency transportation (NET) program. For a transportation company, the second job is the one that matters: CADC is the NEMT broker that the Department of Human Services pays, per Medicaid member each month, to arrange every NET ride in Region E.

Region E takes in 18 counties in southwest Arkansas, stretching from Saline and Garland counties south to the Texas and Louisiana lines. CADC brokered the old Regions 8, 10, and 11 before DHS cut the state from eleven NET regions to seven in 2018. The statewide rules every broker passes down to its subcontractors (camera systems, $1 million in insurance per vehicle, driver checks, monthly broker inspections) are covered in the Arkansas NEMT guide, along with the other six regions. This page sticks to what is particular to CADC.

DHS rebid every region in 2025 under Invitation for Bid 710-25-049. Two bidders offered Region E at $11.67 per member per month, the bottom of the actuary’s range: CADC and MediTrans. Arkansas procurement rule R8:19-11-229(3) breaks a tie in favor of an Arkansas company, so no coin flip was needed and the region went to CADC. DHS posted the anticipated award on July 21, 2025. The new contract’s first rides ran on January 1, 2026. Each term is one year, renewable up to a total of seven years.

How much of Region E goes to outside companies

Plan on very little. CADC is a carrier first. Its 2025 bid says SCAT vehicles carry Region E riders, with subcontracted providers added when necessary, and that it did not currently expect to add subcontractors beyond the one it named. Any later addition needs DHS’s approval before it starts. The ownership and control disclosure DHS still links from its NET page, a file created in June 2023, lists no subcontractors under CADC. The bid’s subcontractor form lists a single company, First Step, Inc., at 407 Carson Street in Hot Springs.

That does not close the door. DHS told bidders that naming subcontractors in a bid does not prevent a broker from adding more later, as long as each new agreement follows the contract’s subcontractor section. CADC’s own narrative describes subcontractors as extra capacity for higher demand or specialized needs, recruited and trained alongside SCAT staff and assigned trips through the same central scheduling as SCAT’s vans. A company that wants Region E work should open with the counties and service levels it can cover reliably, not with a request for volume. When a broker’s network looks full, these approaches tend to work better than repeated applications.

Region E trips by the numbers

Region E is the second most expensive region per member in Arkansas. Its 2026 capitation rate is $11.67 per member per month: $7.77 for regular NET rides and $3.90 for day treatment rides, which joined the contract in 2026. The actuary projected 1,566,948 member months for 2026, which puts estimated payments to CADC at about $18.3 million for the year. Of the $7.77, at least $6.70 has to go to actual transportation costs. If CADC spends less than that floor, it pays the difference back to DHS.

For the year ending June 2024, DHS’s databook counts 68,001 NET trips in Region E, made up of 130,127 legs and 2,898,767 loaded miles. That is about 43 miles per trip, and county averages ranged from 21 to 136. In the 2023 data the actuary used, Region E had no mileage reimbursement, taxi, or bus trips. Every trip was an ambulatory or wheelchair vehicle ride, and about 9 percent were wheelchair rides.

The table shows trips and average loaded miles by the rider’s home county, from DHS’s state fiscal year 2024 databook.

Garland County, around Hot Springs, produced a quarter of the region’s trips. Miller County, home to Texarkana, had the shortest average. The longest averages came from some of the counties with the fewest trips: Sevier, Calhoun, Nevada, and Lafayette.

Day treatment runs are now part of the Region E contract

Since January 2026, rides to Adult Developmental Day Treatment (ADDT) and Early Intervention Day Treatment (EIDT) centers are part of the same capitated NET contract. Before that, DHS paid brokers for them per mile under a separate contract, at $2.86 a mile in Region E for 2025. Region E had more of this work than any other region: 196,215 day treatment trips and 2,003,602 miles in calendar 2024, about 10 miles per trip. That is the opposite of its medical trips: short runs that repeat on program days. Centers that drive their own clients and bill Medicaid directly stay outside the broker contract.

Three DHS rules shape these runs for any company that carries them:

• Separate trips. Day treatment riders may not share a ride with regular NET riders. The same vehicle can do both kinds of work, but on different trips.
• Small children. For EIDT riders aged three or younger, the contract allows at most three riders for each attendant, and the driver may count as one. A driver can never be the only adult on a vehicle carrying a child under three.
• Gas money is the only alternative. For day treatment, the broker may offer only gas cards or mileage reimbursement in place of a ride, and only when the family has a working vehicle.

A day center that hires a carrier itself, instead of going through the broker, signs its own contract, and the adult day care transportation guide covers how those are priced.

Rides that leave Region E or Arkansas

CADC arranges rides into other regions for members who live in Region E. DHS’s contract tells the broker to take members to the closest qualified Medicaid provider, or to one in the member’s own county. Farther trips are covered for visits to the member’s assigned primary care physician or with that physician’s referral, and DHS tells members that a ride outside their region needs a doctor’s referral. Saline County borders Pulaski County, so a Region E member’s ride to Little Rock is still a CADC trip.

The border matters more here than in most regions. Miller and Little River counties touch Texas. Miller, Lafayette, Columbia, and Union counties touch Louisiana, and Little River and Sevier counties touch Oklahoma. Under the contract, CADC must cover rides to providers in a neighboring state if they are enrolled in Arkansas Medicaid and sit no more than 50 miles from the state line. It is not required to carry anyone farther than 50 miles beyond Arkansas. The out-of-state trips guide covers the operating authority questions a cross-border run raises.

What a CADC service agreement involves

Every Arkansas broker uses the same DHS rules for subcontractors, and CADC’s bid adds its own oversight on top. In order:

1. Call CADC’s transportation program. The Benton office is 501-315-1121. Ask which counties, service levels, and hours SCAT needs help with.
2. Expect a DHS-approved agreement. DHS reviews the broker’s model service agreement before services start and approves each subcontractor agreement before signing. The signed agreement goes to DHS or its NET monitoring contractor 30 or more calendar days ahead of your first trip.
3. Settle the rate in writing. Pay is whatever you and CADC agree on, and DHS requires that figure to be spelled out in the agreement.
4. Pass the screens. A company with a Medicaid or Medicare fraud conviction, a termination from either program, or an exclusion from any Arkansas DHS program cannot hold a service agreement with CADC.
5. Train like SCAT staff. CADC’s bid commits subcontracted drivers to the same training as its own: HIPAA at hire and every year after, OSHA bloodborne pathogens training every year, and CPR, first aid, passenger safety, and defensive driving, renewed every one or two years. Site supervisors from its local offices also watch driver performance on scheduled and unannounced visits.
6. Know the pay and correction terms. CADC must pay for authorized trips within 30 calendar days of your invoice. If you fall short of a requirement, the DHS contract sets the corrective action plan clock: notice within 24 business hours, a plan within three business days, and 30 days to fix the problem, longer if the fix is clearly under way.

DHS’s NET monitoring contractor, AFMC, which also runs the NET Help Line, can ride along on trips, ask a subcontractor for its records, and inspect any vehicle at any time. It also inspects every vehicle once a year at minimum, with random checks in between.

When CADC books rides

Members call 1-800-385-9992 to book Medicaid rides, and DHS wants 72 hours of notice, counted as three full days that skip weekends and holidays. The call center takes those calls on weekdays, 8 to 5 Central time, and closes on state and federal holidays. CADC’s bid also describes extended availability from 5 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. across its site offices for early and late trips, while the SCAT handbook lists office hours of 8 to 5, so call a local office before counting on a 5 a.m. answer. On Saturdays, CADC’s bid commits to service between 8 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon for dialysis, chemotherapy, and radiation. Members call their local office for the ride home.

SCAT’s passenger handbook tells riders a vehicle may arrive up to 15 minutes before the pickup time, and that SCAT drivers work curb to curb: they do not enter homes, phone to announce arrival, or knock on doors. It also warns that waits run longer from 1 to 4 p.m.

CADC offices in Region E

Each local SCAT office supervises drivers and handles return trips for its area. The Benton office is the administrative center, and the SCAT manager line is 501-332-5426.

SCAT also has a Lonoke County office (501-676-0019), but Lonoke is in Region G, where Medicaid rides go through Modivcare. Other numbers:

• CADC main line: 501-315-1121, PO Box 580, Benton, AR 72018.
• Medicaid ride scheduling for Region E members: 1-800-385-9992.
• NET Help Line: 1-888-987-1200, option 1, or TDD 1-800-285-1131.

Keeping Region E’s two kinds of trips straight

Region E work mixes short day treatment runs with medical trips that average more than 40 miles, and the two cannot share a vehicle trip. HealthRide’s dispatch board lets you assign a trip in one motion, and repeating day program rides can be set up once as recurring trips. Every finished trip keeps its GPS-recorded miles, timestamps, and rider signature, the records behind the trip log you send CADC with an invoice.